12/21/2016

A novel solution to PEOTUS Trump's conflict of interest

Hrishikesh D. Vinod, Aligning National Interest with Trump's Business Interests: A Fair Solution to Potential Conflicts of Interest (November 29, 2016). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2877494:

Certain lawyers are asking the president-elect Trump and family to sell all his assets including vast world-wide real estate at fire-sale prices and place the proceeds in a blind trust or US Treasury bonds. This will be very disruptive, unfair and may discourage future global entrepreneurs from seeking US presidency. This article offers a fair solution which does not require any sale of assets using some insights from economic theory and Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act of 1966. Aligning the interest of the American people with that Trump family can be accomplished by requiring the Trump family to forfeit all ‘excess’ gain in their net worth to the US treasury. Accountants at the IRS should be able to estimate what the Trumps might have earned, had Mr. Trump not been the president and hence estimate the excess, if any, at the end of his term.